Daily Blog

 BLOG 1 

May 8th 2023 DAY 1: 12:27 PM 

Today, May 8th marks the start of senior project! I’m currently in Texas since I had to take a quick pit stop before getting to LA to go to an important passport appointment. Although I am not in LA with Ava yet, we are organizing our day to day schedule as well as what filming is going to look like. I reached out to my uncle Santiago Marcos who is a professional film producer in LA and has had several years experience in the industry. We are planning to meet with him Wednesday morning to go over our execution plan for our film. We have a few questions to ask him regarding filming logistics and how to format our shots and the documentary itself. We are also scheduling meetings with the designers we have been able to get in contact with today to see what times would work best for them. We are creating a day to day breakdown scheduled today and creating our screenplay with shot breakdowns. We are getting into LA in the late afternoon tomorrow so we probably won’t be able to get to much time filming since most of the day will be lost to travel but we plan to continue refining our plan. Today I spent a total of an hour and a half working out the schedule with Ava and speaking with our mentor and interviewees! I know this is a little bit late but I forgot about the time zone difference and I did write it at 12 I just forgot to post it.

BLOG 2

May 9th 2023 DAY 2: 7:40 PM

For my second day of senior project I flew from Austin to LA to meet Ava! I lost most of the day to travel but after arriving at Ava's house, we went out to dinner and then went on a walk before heading back home to work on our plan for the upcoming days. Today our main task was formulating our interview questions for our upcoming studio visit and meetings. Ava and I sat together and collaborated to brainstorm questions we would want to ask our interviewees. We want to focus our documentary around sustainability in the industry and how its causing a shift int the industry. We also created a more solidified schedule for the rest of our week. Instead of meeting with my uncle tomorrow we decided Thursday would work better for both of us in order to be able to have more time to get advice from him for our film. Today Ava and I worked for two hours on our senior project. Sorry for the delay in posting again the time difference threw me off!

BLOG 3

May 10th 2023 DAY 3: 9:28PM

Today was our first full day and it was quite the crazy day! We were up and out of the house by 8:30 in the morning and our first stop of the day was caffeine. We then spent the next three hours driving around getting different filler shots for our documentary until we had our 12 PM meeting planned with Ella Mae. Ella Mae is an entrepreneur and designer from Colorado. She majored in fashion design at RISD school and then moved out to LA to start her brand; Ella Mae. She recently had her first fashion show in LA which she built the whole set for herself and has started doing pop ups around the city. She knew she wanted to be a fashion designer ever since she was little and her inspiration behind her sustainable company was her love of the planet and the out doors to which she credited living in Colorado for. She was nice enough to invite us over to her apartment where she has a room dedicated as her home studio where her boyfriend and her work together on her her brand full time. She showed us some of her favorite pieces and talked to us about her journey. We filmed asking her our previously drafted questions from the night before. Ava and I were both in awe of her answers as they were so insightful and diligent. It was truly a pleasure meeting Ella and were so excited to share what we learned about her and her business in our documentary. After speaking to Ella, Ava and I drove to a Sweetgreen on Sunset Avenue and on the way we passed Dougbriks Pizza and the Openhimer Group real estate office from the show Selling Sunset on Netflix! After getting some food Ava and I headed to the beach to get some downtime after our crazy day. We then went to play some tennis and walk the dog before heading home for the night. We kicked off our senior project trip with a bang and I'm so excited to find out what the rest of the week has in store. Tomorrow we meet with my uncle to talk film and were going to try and talk to some people at thrift stores around the city!

BLOG 4

May 11th 2023 DAY 4: 11:10 PM

We kicked off the day like we have the last two, with coffee at Alfreds and a dog walk. Ava and I then went to meet my uncle Santiago Marcos who is a film producer at Gaumont and he is our mentor so we wanted to sit with him and discuss our plan for filming, editing, and how to make our documentary enticing and entertaining to watch. Santi gave us some good tips on storyline and possibly adding an unexpected twist towards the end of the documentary. He also advised us on not over explaining topics and keeping it shorter so as to not bore the watchers. He recommended we also find inspiration from other films for our documentary. After lunch with Santi Ava and I walked around Melrose avenue and got some more footage for the rest of the afternoon. We also went to a Goodwill for some research and development and more footage about sustainable shopping. Then we went to go get food at Erehwon before heading home to get ready for a Lizzie McAlpine concert!! After the concert Ava and I went and got pancakes or dinner at the Dennys next door! We completed a total of 5 hours dedicated to our senior project. 

BLOG 5

May 12th 2023 DAY 5: 8:30 PM

Today Ava and I had a chiller day after the crazy last three days. We had a late start in the morning and left the house at around 11:30 AM to get some coffee and a bite to eat before heading to the beach to get some sun. After going to the beach Ava and I went home to shower and chill for a bit before heading out to capture our footage for the day. When we spoke to Ella Mae she talked about larger scale companies and mass production. She mentioned how large companies have started to "greenwash", which means lying about how sustainable a companies practices might be because of the upcoming popularity of sustainability. She particularly mentioned H&M and how they had just recently released a new line and claimed to have used sustainable materials and practices when in reality they mass produced the clothes as they always had. So Ava and I headed to Century Mall to catch some clips of some not so sustainable fashion. We then had dinner at Eataly and headed back home for the night. Once we got back home we drafted some questions for our interview tomorrow with Kyle, the designer for Drew House a company in collaboration with Justin Bieber. I'm excited to speak to Kyle tomorrow and hear his perspective on the introduction of sustainability into the fashion industry and how Dre House is incorporating sustainability into its practices. Today Ava and I completed a total of 2 hours towards our project.

BLOG 6

May 13th 2023 DAY 6: 5:19 PM

Today Ava and I had our second interview with the designer for Drew House, Kyle Svendsen. Kyle studied fashion design in Italy and then got his masters in Paris. His career started one night in a bar where he met Marc Jacobs and got along with him really well and Marc asked him what his dream job would be and Kyle told him it would be to work with Jermey Scott and soon thereafter Marc Jacobs got him a job with Jermey Scott. After working with Jermey Kyle also worked with American Apparel which then turned into LA Apparel. It wasn't up until 4 years ago that Justin Beiber reached out to Kyle and hired him to be the Director of Product at Drew House. He is the head designer and Justin has given him creative freedom when designing the companies product. Drew House is Justin Beibers lounge wear company. You can see Justin wearing Drew house in most of the paparazzi pictures taken of him as well as on his instagram feed. We talked to Kyle for about 2 hours at a coffee shop for our interview. We had drafted questions for Kyle the night before and we had a really interesting interview with Kyle and it was very eye opening. After our interview we headed to Silver Lake Flea to get some more footage for our film. We wanted to capture small sellers and a recent trend in sustainable fashion which is shopping second hand and vintage. Today we did a total of 7 hours towards our senior project. Sorry this is a day late I wrote it and it didn't post. 

Weekly Reflection 

May 14th 2023 DAY 7 7:19 PM

This week has been incredibly eventful and insightful. I have learned a lot from my time here in LA and as our trip comes to an end and we prepare to head back to New Hampshire for the second week of senior project tomorrow this is a perfect time to reflect. This week has been incredibly action packed and Ava and I have spent a lot of time learning about the fashion industry. For my reflection this week I want to include things that I learned from our interviews as well as things that we could have done different to make our trip better. There are a couple of things that I definitely would have changed to have used our time in LA better. 

I would first start with reaching out to more people before our arrival to LA. We reached out to four people before arriving to LA for interviews. We were hoping that we would have four interviews total for our documentary. We were only able to secure two and the other companies said that they weren't taking student interviews, and the other company just didn't answer us at all. Although our two interviews were really successful and provided us with enough content for our documentary it would have been cool to get more perspectives. I would have followed up with the other company that didn't respond to us and reached out to more companies in the first place. 

This week I really learned a lot about the industry. The two interviews we got were perfect for our documentary because both designers had unique intrinsic perspectives on the fashion industry and sustainability. It ended up working out perfectly and provided us with two different angles that are going to make our documentary have an unexpected twist. My uncle Santiago recommended that we offer an opposing and alternate perspective on the stereotypical outlook on sustainability to keep the audience engaged. Ava and I were perplexed as to how we were going to include a twist at the end. After our second interview with Kyle from Drew House we had it. Ella Mae who we interviewed first is a small scale designer and she has a typical outlook on sustainability when it comes to materials and large scale companies who mass produce. She is still only beginning her career in the industry so she had a more narrow minded view of larger companies and the concept of sustainability. Talking to Kyle opened our eyes to a different take on sustainability and how its being used as a marketing strategy. His wide variety of experiences in the industry has provided him with several points of view from a company like American Apparel that mass produces their clothes, Jermey Scott, a high end luxury designer who views fashion as more of an art and produces clothing with less regard to the origin of the materials and more focus on the artistic side of design, and Drew House which offers more creative liberty because they have a strong financial backer. I will save the details for the actual documentary but the two interviews with opposing perspectives has definitely been very eye opening. Today we did two hours for our senior project because of filming and working on getting all of our videos compiled to get them ready to start editing. In total we have 24.5 hours. 

Blog 8

May 16th 2023 DAY 8 3:13 PM

Ava and I leave LA today at 9:45 PM so this morning we got up and went to get coffee at Alfreds one last time. Then we went to play tennis at the local public courts. We played tennis for about two hours to get some exercise in. We then went to get some food at Erehwon. Then we went to get our last needed clips for our documentary. We headed over to Abott Kiney street to get clips of some more vintage stores as well as other bigger chain stores. Then Ava and I went back to her house and started working on our voice over script. Our plane leaves at 9:45 PM and we arrive at Boston the next morning and tomorrow we will drive up to my house in Sutton where we will spend the rest of senior project editing our blog. Today we spent a total of 5 hours on our senior project. 

Blog 9

May 17th 2023 DAY 9 9:20 PM

Ava and I arrived in Boston at 5:45 this morning. After a long five hour flight Ava and I still had a bus to catch to get to Concord and pick up my car. We were thankfully able to catch the earlier bus and got to concord at around 9 AM. After picking up my car we passed by a Hannafords to get some groceries and we then headed home. Once we got home we had breakfast, put on a movie and pretty soon fell asleep. Ava and I had only gotten about two hours of sleep on the plane so we were both pretty exhausted. After our much needed nap Ava and I got to work on editing. We had put all of our videos into a shared folder so we began selecting which ones we wanted to include in the film and arranging them in order. We worked on our film for a total of 4 hours on our senior project today. 

Blog 10

May 18th 2023 DAY 10 8:51 PM

Today was our first full day back in New Hampshire. Ava and I woke up at 12 this morning because we are in LA time still. We got up and made breakfast and some matcha. We then got to work on our documentary. We have started the editing process and we are trying to figure out the best way to edit and organize our footage. We are using I-Movie to edit so we also have to figure out how to use it.  We edited for like three hours this morning and then we took a break and went to campus to pack up our rooms. Afterwards we came back home made taco bowls for dinner and got to work again. We edited for another four or so hours so we did a total of 7 hours towards our senior project today.

Blog 11

May 19th 2023 DAY 11 11:58 PM

Ava and I got up again at 12 still not being able to get rid of our jet lag. We made food as soon as we got up we made breakfast and matcha. We then got to editing and we edited for 4 hours in the morning. We then took a break and went to concord to run some errands and get some supplies for the poster board were making for express fest. Then when we got back to New London we went and played some tennis at the Colby Sawyer tennis courts to get some exercise in. We then went home to make dinner and get back to editing. We've gotten better at using I-Movie but we're still trying to figure out our format for our film. Overall pretty productive day. 

Blog 12

May 20th 2023 DAY 12 8:30 PM 

Today was yet another editing full day. I didn't realize how much time editing would consume. I have taken several film courses before and I love film but I had forgotten just how taxing editing can be. I had mainly done short films before so having to edit over 50 minutes of content has definitely been a challenge. Today we mainly worked on getting the interviews cut and organizing the clips in the order that we want and that will make sense. The first interview we did was with Ella Mae was 15 minutes ish total but our second interview with Kyle ran over 30 minutes and he talked about two different roles he's had within the industry so we had a lot more to edit for his interview. We worked on our film for another 10 hours today. 

Weekly Reflection 2

May 21th 2023 DAY 13 9:47 PM 

This week of senior project was definitely no where near as eventful as the first one and Ava and I have spent the majority of the week sitting at the kitchen counter editing away. This part of our project has definitely been more time consuming than I thought. After several hours of sitting and editing Ava and I would have to peel our eyes away from the screen, our brains feeling like mush and take a break. Sitting and trying to edit for five hour increments has proven very difficult. We have run into two main issues while editing and we've had to come up with solutions. 

Since our first interview with Ella Mae was in her studio where we had a quiet recording space and we just took a video and relied on the audio quality of the video for the documentary. Whereas for Kyles interview we sat down at a coffee shop outside to do so there was background noise and loud music playing over the speakers so thankfully Ava and I remembered to record an audio file on my phone of him talking because as we expected the audio quality of the videos was terrible. We had a really good recording of his voice but this is where we encountered our first problem. We had to sync up the video with the audio recording. This took us an extensive amount of time especially because we had several videos and one audio recording. Then when we would manage to sync up the audio with the video the audio would then somehow get out of sync again while we were editing the clips and we would have to yet again find a way to sync the audio and the video without disturbing any clips. It was definitely a very frustrating process. 

Ava and I have also come to a realization that the other frustratingly difficult part of editing films is cutting out the "um"'s "uh"s and other un-nessesary parts of the interview, while still maintaining the flow of the documentary and making sure that everything makes sense. We didn't encounter this as much with Ellas interview but yet again with Kyle. Because Kyles interview was so long we had to cut down 38 minutes of content into 15 which was definitely a challenge. Two minutes of film took us about 30 minutes to edit down. The majority of the time that we spent editing was dedicated to the part of the documentary with Kyle in it. We now have thankfully finished cutting down the film and organizing the content. All that is left to do now is insert the music, finish the credits, edit the film to the music and add in the voice over. 

Blog 14

May 22th 2023 DAY 14 8:30 PM 

Today the tasks ahead were putting music into the documentary and re-editing the film to the music, making final touches, adding the credits and start writing the voice over. I spent most of today trying to find music and cut the film to match the beat of the music. I had a lot of fun doing this and I'm really happy with how it turned out. The process was definitely time consuming and eye straining but again like I said I loved how it turned out. Then Ava and I started working on the voice over for the documentary. Today in total we did another 10 hours. 

Blog 15

May 23th 2023 DAY 15 3:09PM

For the final day of senior project Ava and I cranked out the final parts of our senior project this morning which included making editing final touches, recording and putting in the voice overs, which then we had to re edit like half the film to make them fit in and make our poster board for express fest. Recording the voice overs and adding them into the film was much more frustrating and time consuming than I would have thought. To get the perfect take for the voice over I had to read the script repeatedly because I kept messing up. If I could start the editing process all over again I would have put int the voice overs first because after putting them in we had to re edit the music and the interviews to fit them in as well as extend the songs. It was painstakingly eternal to edit this film but by the end of it Ava and I were so happy with the final product.